A User Cooperation Stimulating Strategy Based on Cooperative Game Theory in Cooperative Relay Networks

This paper proposes a user cooperation stimulating strategy among rational users. The strategy is based on cooperative game theory and enacted in the context of cooperative relay networks. Using the pricing-based mechanism, the system is modeled initially with two nodes and a Base Station (BS). Within this framework, each node is treated as a rational decision maker. To this end, each node can decide whether to cooperate and how to cooperate. Cooperative game theory assists in providing an optimal system utility and provides fairness among users. Under different cooperative forwarding modes, certain questions are carefully investigated, including “what is each node’s best reaction to maximize its utility?” and “what is the optimal reimbursement to encourage cooperation?” Simulation results show that the nodes benefit from the proposed cooperation stimulating strategy in terms of utility and thus justify the fairness between each user.